Dublin

Oy! Dublin is fabulous. We arrived safely around 7:30 pm on Wednesday. We met Claire at the Bleeding Horse, a bar in downtown Dublin. We rode the train, the LUAS, to her apartment which is outside the city. The apartment is incredible! It's a bit of a commute for her to class every morning, but probably worth it. It's a really nice area with a breathtaking view of the Wicklow Mountains. Wednesday night we went out to a pub, O'Doyles, with Claire and a bunch of girls on her program. It was fun - except drinks in Dublin are very expensive! My new favorite drink is Bulmer's - a cider. After the pub we went to a club called Twenty-One for awhile, then took a taxi home. Thursday morning we got up relatively early. Caitlin, Claire and I decided to walk around Dublin for awhile to see some of the popular tourist things - St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christchurt, Trinity College, etc. After doing that for awhile and getting lunch in a cute cafe, we trekked to the Guinness Brewery. It was an adventure as we had to navigate to the seedy part of Dublin. We made it fine and the brewery was really cool! It's a self-guided tour with a free pint at the end in the Gravity Bar - 7th floor of the storehouse overlooking the city and mountains. After that we found our way back home, exhausted. We grabbed some dinner, I showered and we went out to Temple Bar for a couple drinks...it was swarming with Americans, and the drinks were even more expensive than other Dublin pubs (6 euro for both Bulmer's and Carlsberg!) so it was mostly for tourist purposes. One thing I really like about Dublin is that there are no sky rises. When we first arrived here I was thinking to myself.."there is no way this can be downtown, there are no buildings!" but apparently they are all about historical preservation and it's definitely apparent.

Tomorrow Claire has a trip with her study abroad program so Caitlin and I are going to spend a few hours out in Wicklow - known as "the garden of Ireland." We are going to a small town called Enniskerry which is where the movie "P.S. I Love You" was filmed. I am excited to get out of the city because as much as I like it, the atmosphere reminds me a lot of places I could find in the U.S. After Enniskerry we have a flight to London at 7:10 and will probably just hang out at our hostel after arriving.

Pictures to come soon!